This invention relates to an integrated circuit. In particular, this invention relates to an integrated circuit including a directional light sensor. The invention further relates to a method of making such an integrated circuit.
Nowadays, integrated circuits may comprise a plethora of different sensors, such as ambient light (AL) sensors, temperature (T) sensors, gas sensors, relative humidity (RH) sensors, specific analyte detection sensors, and so on.
Integrated circuits of this kind have a wide range of applications. For example, they can be used in the field of supply chain management to track and monitor the freshness of food and beverages. They can also be used as environmental sensors, for example as part of a heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system in an automobile or in a building (e.g. a Smart Building). Additional applications include those in agricultural (e.g. the sensing of environmental conditions in greenhouses) or in medical fields. Their provision in mobile communications devices such as mobile telephones, tablets or laptops can also enable a wide range of further applications that require measurements of local environmental factors.
The provision of sensors in integrated circuits of this kind allows devices to be produced that have a small form factor, and which can be manufactured cheaply in large numbers using established semiconductor processing techniques.
Due to their small form factor, integrated circuits of this kind can easily be included in Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags, allowing for easy programming and readout.